NextOp Licenses BugScope Assertion Synthesis to Graphics Leader NVIDIA

Update: Atrenta Accelerates Growth in Front End Design with Acquisition of NextOp Software, Inc. (June 20, 2012)

SANTA CLARA, Calif. May 3, 2011 – NextOp Software, Inc. today announced that NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) has signed a multi-license agreement to expand its usage of NextOp’s BugScope assertion synthesis product.

NVIDIA supports assertions across its simulation, formal, and emulation verification environments as part of an assertion-based verification methodology. NVIDIA uses NextOp’s BugScope assertion synthesis after significant changes in either the RTL design or its test suite. BugScope automatically generates assertion and coverage properties in standard assertion language formats. The assertions can detect potential RTL problems and localize the problems for quick debugging, and the functional coverage properties drive further test development.

BugScope provides a world-class platform across simulation, formal and emulation flows to:

1. Reduce the engineering time and effort needed to create high quality coverage points and assertions.
2. Uncover corner case bugs
3. Identify functional coverage holes.

NextOp’s results for NVIDIA:

1. For a production design block with over 100K lines of RTL code, BugScope generated over 2000 high quality properties, including over 1200 useful assertions and over 800 useful functional coverage properties. 
2. Met target quality and performance specifications. BugScope generated properties have been checked in as a part of NVIDIA’s test environment.
3. BugScope assertions and functional coverage properties incurred minimal (< 2%) overhead to simulation regression.
4. BugScope testpoints helped uncover RTL bugs during the process of reviewing the test points and from tests developed to target the test points.
5. BugScope assertion and coverage properties were found to be complementary to NVIDIA’s simulation, formal and emulation flows.

“The manual effort required to create an adequate number of high quality assertions and functional coverage goals was a key challenge for us,” said Stuart Oberman, Director of ASIC Engineering, NVIDIA. “NextOp’s assertion synthesis technology has helped us to address the challenge.”

“NVIDIA is an industry leader in both design and verification best practices,” said Yunshan Zhu, President and CEO of NextOp Software. “We are excited that NVIDIA has successfully incorporated NextOp BugScope assertion synthesis as a core technology for its assertion based verification flow, and is now further expanding its BugScope deployment.”

About NextOp Software

NextOp Software, Inc. is focused on delivering assertion-based verification solutions that allow design and verification teams to uncover bugs, expose functional coverage holes, and increase verification observability. NextOp’s BugScope assertion synthesis is the first product to automatically generate whitebox assertions and functional coverage properties in SVA, PSL and Verilog formats. BugScope’s properties are used to drive progressive, targeted verification via robust, executable design specifications for existing simulation, formal and emulation flows. The company is headquartered at 2900 Gordon Avenue, Suite 100, Santa Clara, CA 95051. For more information, visit www.nextopsoftware.com  or call +1 408-830-9885. BugScope and NextOp are trademarks of NextOp Software, Inc.